Big names all the way down and I've only seen Redford's performance. I'm excited to watch all these guys do their thing and can only hope it lives up to the last couple years I've done in this category!
1973 Best Actor
Jack Lemmon - Save the Tiger
I am a huge Jack Lemmon fan. I just completely dig his style of acting and the fact that he did it for so long with so many great roles. From his dramas to his comedies and to everything in between, I could watch Lemmon act every day, all day. I was excited to finally see his Best Actor winning performance because I honestly didn't really know anything about it. What I had gathered over the years is that this was a passion project of sorts that would be a great way for him to earn another Oscar. So Oscar bait from Jack Lemmon, if you will. And I'm okay with that! There's a few actors I'll be fine with them gunning for an Oscar and giving us a film that's all about them. This film is certainly all about Lemmon, a garment factory owner who has a moral conflict when it comes to trying to save his business. The films shows all of Lemmon's shady dealings like cooking the books, hiring prostitutes for his prospective buyers, and finally hiring someone to burn down the warehouse so as to collect the insurance money. It's whatever he can do to stay open for another little bit to put out more collections and clothes. But Lemmon as a character is also in a run down marriage. They spend a lot of time apart and when they are together, there doesn't seem to be any real spark. He picks up young female hitchhikers I think in an attempt to sort of feel young again. He cheats on his wife with the girl and is just a pretty unlikable guy, yet Lemmon does all this in a way where you don't truly hate him, you just feel sorry for him. He has these PTSD flashbacks to the war and he has this internal dilemma where he feels he is letting down his buddies that died by being a shady businessman and not living up to the ideals of the American dream. You can see that this clearly is in favor of giving Lemmon a ton to work with and he of course is more than capable of executing everything perfectly. I like his jittery, frenetic, talking a mile a minute acting style. It seems to allow for improvisation and unplanned deviations even though everything was rehearsed before shooting (though there still could have been changes made on the spot, I don't know). I connect with his style, but I sense that others might get turned off by it. I do think that it works really well for him especially in the scene where he smokes some weed with the hitchhiker girl and goes off with wanting to relate to his past and being angry that the girl didn't know some things he was talking about. There was a fine balance being struck to keep from going too overboard in any direction, whether too angry or too sad or too hammy with the content. Again, this was more of an acting showcase for Lemmon and he nails it. He gets all of the screen time, all of the dialogue, and gets to run through all kinds of emotions and act out a lot of inner conflict. It's great to watch someone of his caliber just completely go to town on a role and do so in a way that doesn't actually come off as being Oscar bait. I mean, the guy can be in a scene discussing the complexities of burning his business down and then quickly shout out a baseball player's name he was trying to remember and then go on about that before coming back around to the arson. It just shows how the character's mind works but also how Lemmon can take the inner workings of a person's mind and really show what's going on in someone's head. It's fantastic stuff and I'm glad that Lemmon became the first person in Oscar history to win one each in Supporting and Lead.
Marlon Brando - Last Tango in Paris
I guess I'll start off by saying I was not really into this film. There was a ton of controversy surround this film when it came out and it had an X rating at first and was supposed to be very explicit and almost taboo. And that may have been the case back in 1972-73, but watching this in 2019 makes it hard to see what all the fuss was about. It's pretty tame by today's standards. The nudity is is not really explicit and is mostly done in service to the sexually charged story. The sex scenes are usually brief and don't really show anything titillating. You see more in the 80's erotic thrillers than this. The most controversial part is the butter scene where Marlon Brando uses butter as lube for anal with the lead actress. It's essentially rape in the story and I guess that butter part was never communicated to the actress when it was being filmed, so almost rape just in that sense, too. I would say that's the only real controversial moment in the film. Maybe you can also say the opening scene where Brando forces the woman to have sex after just meeting or in the scene where he has her put her fingers into his ass. I mean, that kinda shows you what this film is about although the sex really takes a back seat at times to the story. Brando's character is not a likable guy, he's very controlling and dour and moody and emotional. This all starts after his wife kills herself and he has to deal with that trauma. He starts a relationship with the young girl, Jeanne, on the pretenses that they just meet and have sex and they don't know anything about each other. It's Brando's way of being able to control the relationship and the feelings and emotions, I think. I feel like his grief has caused him to wildly swing to an extreme of random sex with a young girl he just met. I won't pretend to try and dive into the meaning of the film and all of it's subtext, but it is a very raw film for Brando to open up in. I think Brando does some great acting in parts, but even he admitted that he didn't understand the point of the film and that he didn't know what director Bernardo Bertolucci meant about certain scenes. And that clearly shows, as the performance as a whole falls flat. It's definitely more interesting in parts, in part because it was full of improvisation from Brando who didn't like to memorize his lines and would read lines off cards in the scene or make up new ones. I think that's why the performance feels so incomplete as their isn't a consistency throughout the film. Couple that with me not really liking the film and this Brando performance just doesn't really do it for me. Many people claim this is his best work and one of the best acting performances ever, but it's too hamstrung by a director who wants to be controversial and provocative and edgy. It really misses the mark for me.
Jack Nicholson - The Last Detail
"I am the motherfucking Shore Patrol!" Always wondered where that line came from, now I know. This film sees Nicholson having such a blast in the role of Billy "Badass" Buddusky. Like it's very clear that Nicholson is enjoying every second and just going all out with the role. It's like watching what Nicholson would become in his later years and this is the trial run. His enthusiasm for the role is infectious and this quickly becomes his film, even though the point of the story is about the young shy guy that Nicholson and Otis Young are escorting to naval prison. It's essentially a vehicle for Nicholson to do what he wants with his character and he creates a very memorable one while doing so. While Young plays the straight man, Nicholson gets to be wild and crazy while showing Randy Quaid's character the time of his life before he goes to prison. He seems like a Navy lifer that really needed a bit of adventure to satiate his soul and we get to watch as that process unfolds over the film. Nicholson is surly and mostly an asshole but his softer side comes out and he recognizes that the poor kid he's escorting is a virgin and has no real life experience and decides to change that. They get drunk, they threaten a bartender when he won't serve the underage Quaid, they watch dirty movies, get more drunk, go to a whorehouse, eat lots of food, party with women, and just get into all kinds of hijinks. Nicholson is the one leading the way the entire time and his wild demeanor can be endearing at times. It's not a deep role for Nicholson, but he definitely brings a lot more to the character than I think other actors would. There's an earnestness in his Badass to do the right thing and stick it to those in authority a little bit, as evidenced by his interaction with the Marine Lieutenant at the end of the film. The character isn't just an asshole party boy, but someone with humanity who just shows it in a different way. It's a fun, interesting early performance from Nicholson that I imagine many people haven't ever seen. Well, it's definitely worth watching for Nicholson's performance alone.
Al Pacino - Serpico
This is my final Pacino nomination to review and it's kinda sad that I'm coming to the end of seeing his performances. There are few actors that have the longevity and output that he has had in his career. I've already watched and reviewed The Godfather for 1972, so this is really the end. But it's so easy to see why Pacino was so highly regarded as an actor. He had this stretch of a few years where every role was iconic and everlasting and this is certainly one of them. It's also Pacino boiled down to his essence. This is before all the yelling became his trademark style (you know what I'm talking about, just watch Heat or Any Given Sunday to get that style) and he offers up a fully committed performance that is so reserved yet bombastic at the same time. The film is about a NYC cop who isn't on the take and tries to root out corruption from the top down in the NYPD. We see a man who is driven to the edge of his own humanity and is beaten down by the pressure of doing what is morally right and just. Pacino plays a lot of Serpico as this sort of independent, hippie like character who just wants to do good police work. His fellow cops can't and don't trust him because he's not on the take and that moral power struggle eats at Pacino like a disease. It's fun to watch Pacino use a more minimalist style than the maximum style he'd later be more well known for. He really makes you feel Serpico's distrust and dislike by his fellow cops like you are the one they hate. I would have liked more depth to the character, though. I say that because we see that Serpico is a good cop, but never go too in depth about why he is so steadfast in not taking money on the side and eventually turning on his fellow cops. The relationships he has are strained but also not too well developed for us to explore what makes Serpico tick. He's also kind of a controlling ass who lashes out at his girlfriends, which seems understandable with the immense pressure and life and death choices he makes, but point to a more conflicted person underneath and not the pristine good cop who is the epitome of morality. I feel like there is more to explore and I feel like Pacino in a couple years, or even less, would have allowed us to do just that. But Pacino is truly fantastic in this film and I started this one late on a work night not knowing if I'd finish it in one sitting, yet Pacino's performance sucked me in and next thing I knew it was finished. I was enthralled with Pacino no matter if the story had some repetitive moments of going from precinct to precinct and encountering the same corruption and being hated and moving on. Pacino (and director Sidney Lumet) is what makes the story so intriguing because we invest our self fully into his Frank Serpico and follow his journey. I'm sad that I don't get to see more of this kind of work from him. It's really strong acting and these roles are what cemented him as one of the greatest of his generation.
Robert Redford - The Sting
It's weird to think that Redford only has one acting nomination total for his long, illustrious career. We always think of him as this big Hollywood superstar known for his good looks and charm and forget he is an Oscar winning director, too! I don't think this is Redford's best acting performance ever, it just happens to be in a film that the Academy loved that year and Redford was more the lead than Paul Newman really was. Redford plays a grifter who steals from a mob bag man and his partner is killed as a result. This leads him to Newman, a well known con man, who helps Redford pull off a huge con on the mob boss as revenge. This is a very Redford performance, one where his movie star qualities succeed in making him the everyman and allows the audience to sympathize with a grifter. It's a fine performance and Redford does a good job with the role and is really dedicated to his character, but it's not anything amazing. I think Redford benefits from being in this film and also being in The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand and having that be a huge romantic movie hit. Having two huge box office hits helped get him this nomination and it's almost fitting for his acting career as a whole. And really not much else to say, it's Redford so you know exactly what you are getting and he doesn't disappoint in that. A great film and a great actor to both enjoy.
Another year, another Pacino-Nicholson face off. Both lose, again, although my winner is Pacino - again. This one doesn't have anything to do with righting the make up Oscars giving out later, but just because I really like Pacino in his film and think it's a really strong performance. I love the hell out of Lemmon and see why this performance won him his Best Actor Oscar. But it really is Oscar bait in it's purest form and in a lesser year he is my easy winner. For now he will have to settle for second. Nicholson is in the middle mostly because the performance is kinda the same throughout. It's a lot of fun to watch Nicholson clearly having a blast in the role, so that right there makes it worth the watch. Plus, it's probably way overlooked as it is so why not be one of the few to watch it? Redford is Redford. There are three way better performances though his is no less entertaining. I'm glad he has an acting nomination but he's like Brad Pitt winning his Oscar for something other than acting. Brando brings up the rear. Not a fan of the film and felt the performance was disjointed. I love early Brando, but later Brando is so frustrating to watch. A pretty good year by my standards. No more Pacino-Nicholson battles in my future, but I'm sure there will be something else to look forward to.
Oscar Winner: Jack Lemmon - Save the Tiger
My Winner: Al Pacino - Serpico
Jack Lemmon
Jack Nicholson
Robert Redford
Marlon Brando
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